(Toronto Star) A newly released psychiatric assessment of a woman convicted of attacking Canadian Tire employees and customers with a knife and golf club “for ISIS,” suggests she was suffering from “actively psychotic” symptoms and “paranoid and persecutory delusions” at the time of the June 2017 attack and could have offered a defence of not criminally responsible.
The report also suggests the deterioration of Rehab Dughmosh’s mental health starting in 2014 may be linked to her embrace of the terror group’s violent ideology around the same time.
The report was ordered by the court last year to assess whether the not-criminally-responsible defence was available for Dughmosh, 34, convicted last week of four terrorism-related charges after an unusual jury trial in which she represented herself. She did not participate in the trial except to agree to the facts presented by the crown and did not present a defence.
